


a kinder touch

by isometric



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Blood and Injury, Call Girl briefly appears and Professor Timothy is mentioned, Established Relationship, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry all Butters fans because here he is an unrepentant villain, Kenny is a sweetheart as always, M/M, Near Death Experiences, POV Second Person, Sober Tweek, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, With Emphasis on Hurt, bullet isn't because of him though don't worry!, people freaking out because someone got shot, some very uncomfortable description of GSW aftermath, uhhhhhh Professor Chaos is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 19:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15444546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isometric/pseuds/isometric
Summary: (i don't want to hurt you)





	a kinder touch

**Author's Note:**

> so tweek is canonically a strong fighter, right? e.g. tweek vs craig? what if he was also just strong?  
> then i decided to hurt someone

Mysterion’s always been easy to manhandle.

It’s his slight build. Shorter and skinnier than the rest of the gang, though he doesn’t look it. Malnourished and overworked, though he’d never admit it. All he has is agility and lean muscles.

He’s pliant in your arms now. A stray bullet he’d pushed you out of the way from, lodged somewhere in his abdomen. His head’s tucked into the crook of your elbow, blue eyes wide and unfocused; one hand grasps weakly at the front of your suit, the other lying limp on the ground.

“Medic arriving in five,” Call Girl says. She finishes tying the bandage around the hand you have pressed against the wound, and takes out a second roll. You risk Mysterion bleeding to death and lift your hand to let her wrap it. Someone chatters into her earpiece, and she frowns at whatever piece of news she receives even as her hands keep working.

“Just say it,” you grit out. Bad news is bad news, and not knowing what to expect puts you on edge.

“They got the road blocked. Prof’s got the ambulance rerouted, but you’ll have to carry him down the hill.”

It should be easy. Mysterion’s never weighed much to you. But Call Girl looks at your expression and bites her lips, and you know you’re both thinking about the bullet, how you don’t know where it’s lodged. How the hill is an easy incline, but the way down is strewed with remnants of the building the fight tore down. Two rolls of bandages, and blood’s still seeping through.

Call Girl’s earpiece chatters again, and she stands up, takes out a flashlight. “Two minutes,” she says, her mouth a hard line. “We need to go.” She turns on the flashlight and walks ahead, scouting a path among the debris.

“Shit!” you snarl. You want to tear your hair out. But Mysterion’s in your arms, broken and bleeding. _Two minutes_ , you think. Fuck it all.

You shift your arm down his back to grab at his uninjured side, readjusting his head so it leans against your shoulder instead of lolling about, and slip your other hand under his knees. When you stand up, the movement makes him clutch harder at you. When you shift and pull him tighter to your chest, bumping his wound, he whimpers. Each step you take down the hill, following Call Girl’s light, seems to hurt him.

“Look out!”

You trip over a pipe just as you hear Call Girl’s warning. You catch yourself, landing hard on your feet, but it’s enough to jolt Mysterion.

“Tweek,” he gasps, and passes out.

\---

The nurse lets you in after strict reminders to keep calm lest you freak the patient out. For a while, you sit at his side, head in your hands, watching him breathe around his feeding tube.

He almost died.

You still have nightmares about it. Dreams in which he bleeds to death, his body growing colder, blood sticky on your hands. Sometimes you wake up convinced you’ll find the hospital bed empty.

 _It’s not your fault_ , Timmy had said, like you weren’t the one who tore the building apart with your storms, tore it into the pieces that you had to pick your way around going down the hill, that you tripped on at the very end. Like it’s not your fault you were so caught up in the storm-rage you failed to notice and redirect a single stray bullet. When you tripped and slammed against him, you opened his wound up further.

If you had been even a minute later ––you, the ambulance, the doctors–– it doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Tweek?”

Kenny’s voice is soft, more an exhale than anything. You look up and see his tired eyes, the dark circles under them. He’d slept for three days straight.

“Thirsty?” you ask, and when he nods, you form ice chips out of the cup of water you’d brought in. You form mini ice tongs to feed him the chips with.

And for a while, it’s quiet. Kenny falls in and out of consciousness. You feed him a chip every time he wakes up again. The period of time he stays awake for gets longer and longer, until finally alertness comes back into his eyes.

“How long?” he croaks, and you tell him. “What happened?”

“Chaos got away. You got shot. Wendy did emergency field dressing. I carried you down the hill to the ambulance. That–– it almost dislodged the bullet, doctor said.”

Kenny mulls on that, and you consider telling him you almost killed him. “You carried me?” he asks, like that’s the most important part of what you said.

You try not to spaz out. The nurse explicitly told you to keep calm. “Easily,” you settle with, through your teeth.

“I don’t weigh anything to you?” he frowns, and you want to shake him hard, temper fraying.

 _No_ , you want to snap at him, _you don’t weigh anything to me, and that’s not the point_. It’s not the point. He’d been so light even when he was dead weight. Sometimes you think about how, if he had more mass, it would have been easier to push you out of the way. If he had more mass, the amount of blood he lost wouldn’t have been so frightening.

You don’t yell, and you don’t shake him. You count your breaths and force yourself to calm down, because you’re twenty-four and an adult who regularly sees a therapist. Because Kenny’s only just woken up from almost dying, and maybe death scrambles up people’s priorities.

You must have a terrible expression, though, because he takes one look at you and immediately reaches for the hand closest to him. “Tweek,” he starts, before you interrupt him with a shake of your head.

“The last thing you said,” you tell him, “was my name.” He doesn’t understand, so you elaborate. “The last time I thought I’d get to hear you say it...” You can’t bring yourself to finish.

The confusion on his face melts into heartbreak. “Tweek,” he whispers, squeezing your hand.

“I regretted telling you. I thought––” and you cut yourself off, take a shuddering breath to keep your voice from breaking, “I thought, if you were going to say it like that the last time, I’d rather never hear you say my name.”

And then you break eye contact and hang your head. Kenny cups your face with his free hand, and you cover it with yours, leaning forward to ease the strain on his arm.

He almost died.

The last thing he said was your name.

All those times he’d hung on to you for jokes, marvelling at your strength. You’d dragged him around so easily. You never once stopped to think about what that might translate to in a fight.

You’re just as bad as a bullet; even without your storms, you could have broken him.

“Tweek,” he says, and you try to keep yourself together. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“I almost killed you––”

“You didn’t. I’m okay. Thanks for saving me.”

“It was my fault.”

“It’s okay. Even if it was, I forgive you.” He pulls you till you slump onto the bed, prods at you until you adjust to a comfortable position. “Thank you for staying with me.”

You don’t have anything to say to that.

In the ambulance, after he’d woken up from his faint, you’d wondered if that was how you were going to remember him: pale and small and gasping for breath. His hand clammy and cold. He was in so much pain he had no grip, was boneless on the stretcher, could no longer speak. And when the paramedics undid the bandages to start packing the wound, the smell of blood and the sight of the open hole was so overwhelming you almost gave him frostbite.

You’d wondered if that was what you’d remember of him: blood and fear. The softness of his organs when you pressed against the wound, how hard you had bear down to stem the bleeding; the sound he made as you pushed the air out of him. The stiffness of his hand when you froze it in panic. The taste of copper in the back of your throat for days.

You wanted to flee so much that in the end, you never went home. You sat in the hospital, slept in the chairs, afraid that if you left, you’d go back on meth.

Mysterion was invincible, untouchable. You’d forgotten that Kenny wasn’t.

“Tweek?” Kenny says. His voice brings you out of your thoughts. You never asked how he felt, you realize. “I’m here, I’m okay.”

“How do you feel?”

“Glad that you’re here.” He doesn’t know you’d considered cutting ties with him while they debated removing his spleen. “Will you be okay?”

“I–– no. Maybe.”

“Do you want to nap with me?”

You chance a look at his face. Kenny smiles back, his expression open and sweet. “Yes.”

He lets you nuzzle against him, lets you lace your fingers with his. Then he starts humming, the Winter Undella tune from Chinpokomon Black, and you feel your thoughts slowing down. You’d missed the warmth and safety he radiates. You don’t know how long you lie there with him, but his humming eventually drops off, and you listen to his breathing deepen.

No part of the last three days was okay. And the two of you, and Wendy, and maybe even Timmy, aren’t going to be okay for a long time either.

But right now, you’re exhausted and he’s alive. You close your eyes, fall asleep, dream of blood.

You wake up, and he’s still right here.

**Author's Note:**

> *magically handwaves US healthcare system because ~~wtf~~ Token loves FPals and has a private hospital*  
>  *magically handwaves identity issues at hospital setting because Token's private hospital*  
> *uhhhhh, was not in fic but Wendy brings Tweek his food and med and clothing during the hospital stay*
> 
> Listen, how much of Tweek's personality is directly attributable to his meth addition? I imagine that once he's off it and has had a few years to settle with that and a really good therapist (+supportive network), some of his jitters and fears will calm down. I wanted to show him at a point where meth isn't a concern anymore even if side effects still persist, and explore how that history (and tendency to react with panic+distress+need to flee) would mesh with extreme situations in this present in which he's sober, more confident, has an active support group, and is an adult with responsibilities.


End file.
